Hello Ducky

Here's one of the Highfields' ducks enjoying a bit of sunbathing in the late afternoon sunshine.

The Buck Stops Here

Passing through Wollaton Park, I noticed a group of deer enjoying the shade from the warm evening sunshine.

Fingers In The Earth

Besides rhodendrums in Highfields, there are also a lot of trees of different ages and varieties. I don't know what this one is, but it has been there a long time, the way the roots have spread out and exposed. Maybe it's one of the original ones that were planted in the 1930s when the park was opened.

Shadow Lines

Some strong late afternoon sunshine has generated a number of shadow lines of trees in Highfields.

You may be able to spot a jogger running along the pathway in the top left hand corner.

Lines And Shadows

Abstract of a staircase and wall of the Nottingham Contemporary.

Sinister

As a fan of noir movies, I saw this staircase in one of our public buildings and I think it fits in very well with the theme. You can just imagine Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum standing there in trench coat and holding a gun. Or Barbara Stanwyck climbing the stairs slowly, as she heads for a rendezvous in an hotel room.

Obviously it's not as dark as I've made it. Slight tweaking in my digital darkroom. Although it is all concrete and looks quite depressing in a way. But it's not a staircase from one of the city centre's multi storey car parks, as you might expect, but one that was built for entertainment.

Black Over Bill's Mothers

Today has literally been a bit of a washout. It's rained on and off all the time. The only time that I stepped out of the house is when I went to take some rubbish to the bin.

I had to take some more rubbish out this evening, as it had stopped raining. Looking up, I noticed that the sun was trying to peak from behind the black clouds. So grabbing my camera, I went upstairs to take some photos.

The clouds must have been moving quite quickly as they the shape and position of them had changed in the minute or so that it took me to take this photo.

Castle Light

Nottingham Castle as the sun was setting. I took it from a local car park, so I was almost at the same height as the castle itself.

Illumination

Some late sunshine reflected off the university's Trent Building, which is also reflected in the lake in Highfields.

Lines

They are certainly cracking on with the renovation of the railway station. The new roof has made the interior brighter and it casts some interesting shadows across the newly cleaned brickwork.

There's still a lot of work to do, and it will certainly be interesting to see what it looks like when it's finished. It seems ages since I walked into the booking office or used the platform, that I can't really remember what it looked like.

Passing Strangers

One of the stairways into Westminster tube station.

Just two ordinary people going about their business, or something more suspicious, considering the area that I was in?

Tunnel Of Doom

The other day I recognised a photo on Facebook of the tunnel in the Broad Marsh shopping centre that leads to the bus station.

It was in black and white and so made the area look even more gloomy and uninviting, than it already is. Even though it is one of the main thoroughfares to the bus station. There were a couple of kiosks along there, but they closed down years ago. In fact the whole shopping centre has been earmarked for redevelopment. But it is an awful long time coming. A change of owner hasn't really helped, as they seem more interested in extending the Victoria Centre, which they already own. So the Broad Marsh limps on, even though half the shops are empty.

So back to my photo. Taking some inspiration from Crash Taylor's photo, I decided to shoot the tunnel from the other end. A shade more light, as the entrance faces the street, but just as uninviting don't you think?

A Matter Of Heat And Cold

Well today has actually felt like a proper summer's day, with local temperatures reaching a dizzy 25 degrees C.

Although its been sunny, I didn't take any photos, as I've been busy pottering around the house and garden.

So here's a shot which I took in Highfields, in the middle of February. All that snow. Be great now for keeping cool. But of course it would soon melt.

Lighting Up Kit

Gail and I spent a very enjoyable and educational day in the company of top professional photographer Stuart Wood.

His photography is quite wonderful, and many of his images have appeared in top magazines and has had several front covers of the Radio Times.

There were only four of us on the course, and so it was like having one to one tuition. Firstly he went though some of his portfolio, and told us how he had created the pictures. Sometimes with many lights, sometime with just one, or just using natural light.

We then went on to learn about Rembrandt, butterfly, and split lighting. And of course the 'Inverse Square Law'.  Which is very useful to know when placing lights next to your model.

Our model was called Chantelle, and sat patiently whilst we all took photos of her, which showed the different styles of lighting.

Stuart also showed us a very neat trick with a single lamp and a sheet of white material on the floor, as in the photo above. Below is the result. Genius eh!

Sundancer

Been busy today moving things. Not just at home; but for a friend too, who will sadly be leaving our street for good next week to travel to Spain for three weeks, then moving to another part of Beeston later on.

So I haven't really had that much time today for photography. And it has been lovely and sunny too, and being a holiday weekend, there was something on at Wollaton Park that I wanted to see. It's on again tomorrow, so hopefully I'll find a bit of time to go.

Well today's photo is of a white tulip in the garden. Which only proves that you don't have to go very far to find something to take a photo of.

Red Sky At Night

There was an amazing pink sky this evening. The first one that I'd seen in a while. So I thought I had better try and take a photo of it, as it might be quite a while before we get another one.

The Sun Has Finally Woken Up (Maybe)

Well it seems that the sun may slowly beginning to come out of it's very long hibernation, as its shown its face for the past couple of days; although it is still very cold.

Here's a shot from Highfields, which I cycled through on my way home from work.

There's no blossom sprouting on the trees yet, and as I posted on Tuesday, daffodils and tulips are only just coming into bloom, which I think is about a month behind their usual appearance. They are usually out for Mothers Day, as I usually seem kids picking them for their mums, rather than going to a shop to buy some. Can you go daffodil scrumping?

Snowly Going

Although we've had no more snow since last weekend, it is still hanging around. Refusing to budge, as the day temperature barely passed the 2 degree mark.

Nottingham seems to have gone into a state of suspended animation at the moment, as there doesn't seem to be a lot happening. So here's a bit of an arty shot from Highfields.

Street Life

Gail and I went on a little adventure this morning in Nottingham city centre. We participated on a street photography workshop, arranged by Michael Lau with a model and five other photographers.

The idea behind using a model was for those photographers that had not done street photography to become used to shooting on the street.

It's something I do all the time, to varying degrees of success, so I went along for the fun and to shoot Keiron our model for the day.

We went to various places across the city centre; especially the Lace Market and the Old Market Square.

Gail had no problem in going up to strangers and asking if she could take their photo. She seemed to spend more time doing this, than shooting the model.  Some people, including myself were a little bit more reserved about doing this. I actually prefer to shoot strangers in a way that they don't know that they are being photographed, which I think is the essence of street photography.

The Blue Period

Today has been very cold and windy. The snow that the weather people had predicted didn't turn up. Although some parts of the country did get a few flakes.

So there wasn't very much happening in the city centre today, but coming home, I noticed that the sky wasn't completely black yet. It was what they call the blue period, or dusk. So I stopped along the canal and took this photo of the sky and lights reflected in the water.